334 SLOWNESS OF PROGRESS. 



a basis for further exploration to follow the event of 

 my reaching the west side of Smith Sound with my 

 vessel late in the summer ; in other words, to ascer- 

 tain what chance there was of carrying into effect 

 my original design, which the circumstance of being 

 forced into a winter harbor on the Greenland coast, 

 instead of the coast opposite, had disturbed. 



The extracts from my field diary, given in the last 

 chapter, will have shown the reader the slowness of 

 our progress ; while a former chapter will have so far 

 satisfied him concerning the track over which we had 

 recently traveled as to make any review of it in this 

 connection unnecessary. Although anticipating at the 

 outset a grave obstacle in the hummocks, I was un- 

 prepared to encounter them in such formidable shape ; 

 and the failure of the foot party to make headway 

 through them was a serious blow to my expectations. 

 I had, however, prepared myself for every emergency, 

 and looked forward to making up what I had lost by 

 remaining in Smith's Sound another year. 



The journey across the Sound from Cairn Point 

 was unexampled in Arctic traveling. The distance 

 from land to land, as the crow flies, did not exceed 

 eighty miles ; and yet, as hitherto observed, the jour- 

 ney consumed thirty-one days, — but little more than 

 two miles daily. The track, however, which we were 

 forced to choose, was often at least three times that 

 of a straight line ; and since almost every mile of that 

 tortuous route was traveled over three and often five 

 times, in bringing up the separate portions of our 

 cargo, our actual distance did not probably average 

 less than sixteen miles daily, or about five hundred 

 miles in all, between Cairn Point and Cape Hawks. 

 The last forty miles, made with dog-sledges alone, oc- 



